ARCHIVE FOR The Writing Life

Last year, I didn't make any New Year's resolutions. Frankly, I was tired of pushing myself so hard, and I thought: hey, how about I just try my best this year? It felt like a gentle enough goal given that I had just started a new job and my first novel was about to be published. While I knew quite a bit about what was ahead (I'd published nonfiction before), I had very little idea about whether the outcome for this book would be good, bad or indifferent, and how I would end up feeling about it all

Finding the right gift for the discerning reader or writer can be tricky, especially if you aren't sure what book to buy them because they may already be voracious readers and have read your book of choice. But you're in luck--I have ten fantastic possibilities for you to bring some holiday cheer to a storyteller or reader in your life! So without further adieu, let us count down the gifty possibilities. Some of them even include discounts just for Grub readers! 

The first time you publish a book, it’s a pretty surreal experience. First you wallow deliciously in the dreams and hopes that have built up inside you for years. Eventually, you learn to deal with the inflated expectations that breathless articles about the writing life have created in you. And then, when you make a sale, you have to wade through a lot of conflicting information: reconciling what your publisher promises with the sometimes demoralizing advice you get from other first-time authors (who often just don’t seem quite as happy as you think they should be).

With an eye to ...

The October 2019 edition of "Writing Life Essentials," a monthly hand-curated list of contests, grants, scholarships, submissions calls, and awards, with a focus on opportunities that are at least one of the following: local, free to apply, and/or committed to celebrating and supporting writers from historically marginalized communities. We do the research, so you have more time for what matters: the writing. Or, slaying zombies. That matters too.

Twitter has been around for over a decade now. And every so often you'll read an article saying that Twitter is dead or dying. That couldn't be further from the truth. Twitter is a growing social media network with over 134 million daily active users, a growth of over 11.6% from the previous year